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Massachusetts defined K-12 Digital Literacy/Computer Science (DLCS) standards in 2016 and developed a 5-12 teacher licensure process, expecting K-4 teachers to be capable of teaching to the standards under their elementary license. An NSF CSforAll planning grant led to the establishment of an NSF 4-year ResearchPractice Partnership (RPP) of district and school administrators, teachers, university researchers, and external evaluators in 2018. The RPP focused on the 33 K-5 serving schools to engage all students in integrated CS/CT teaching and learning and to create a cadre of skilled and confident elementary classroom teachers ready to support their students in learning CS/CT concepts and practices. The pandemic exacerbated barriers and inequities across the district, which serves over 25,000 diverse students (9.7% white/nonHispanic, 83.7% high needs). Having observed a lack of awareness and expertise among many K-5 teachers for implementing CS/CT content and practices and seeing barriers to equitable CS/CT teaching and learning, the RPP designed an iterative, teacher-led, co-design of curriculum supported by equity-focused and embedded professional learning. This experience report describes how we refined our strategies for curriculum development and diffusion, professional learning, and importantly, our commitment to addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion beyond just reaching all students. The RPP broadened its focus on understanding race and equity to empower students to understand how technology affects their identities and to equip them to critically participate in the creation and use of technology
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Evolution of an Integrated, Elementary CSforAll Curriculum
A research-practice partnership (RPP) used a teacher co-design process, supported by equity-focused professional development, to create an elementary-level curriculum that integrates content, practices, and learning progressions from state computing standards with other standards-based curricula. Most district students are part of historically marginalized groups and the RPP chose to develop an equity and inclusion-focused curriculum that would be taught in all elementary classrooms to all students. Twelve teacher teams, supported by researchers and ELL and SPED specialists, designed, piloted, and documented 23 modules of 4-8, 45-minute lessons across K-5. Early adopter teachers followed the pilots and implemented the modules in their classrooms with the goal of facilitating adoption by all elementary classroom teachers. After being interrupted by the pandemic, the RPP developed a strategy where principals in cohorts of schools agreed to collaborate with RPP school-based lead teachers to establish professional learning communities (PLCs) to support classroom implementation of the modules. Eleven schools participated in a 2021-22 cohort and nine more schools joined in 2022-23. Centering equity, PLCs, and quality module documentation and materials are key to sustaining and evolving the CSforAll curriculum. The modules were revised based on feedback obtained from ELL and SPED specialists, early adopters, teacher coordinators, researchers, and district curriculum directors. Using a large data set of meeting and classroom observation records, interviews, field notes, focus groups, surveys, and module documentation, we track the evolution of the curriculum and provide a detailed analysis of one module as an example.
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- PAR ID:
- 10535960
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 9798400704246
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1548 to 1549
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Portland OR USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3626253.3635495
